How The Northern Light Gets In

John Irving Clarke

Summary

Bonnie Prince Charlie is making his attempt to seize the throne, a poet recalls seeing first-hand the effect of the guillotine, the mute son of a war veteran reacts to the declaration of another World War, and an encounter in the Falklands remains lodged in the nightmares of a wounded marine.
Beginning with Joe's escape from Black Scaur Farm in Your Wee Bit Hill and Glen, these six stories detail characters in search of inner peace. Under pressure and beset by abuse, there is a need to forge an identity and prove self-worth. War is either threatening or it has already left its scars.
It is the Northern landscapes and northern light which offers solace. But does that lie in the majestic fells and beguiling lakes? Or is it to be found somewhere within, where affinity with the landscape exists alongside the necessity for honest communication with others and the need for careful nurturing?
"Subtle, absorbing story-telling, from a writer who explores, through close observation of behaviour, shifting sands within relationships. Six stories set in different times but each with the same attention to human interaction - along with microdoses of magic." Tim Pears.

Available since: 03/13/2025.

Print length: 151 pages.

Other books that might interest you

JFK and Mary Meyer: A Love Story

Jesse Kornbluth

Mary Pinchot Meyer was possibly the only woman John F. Kennedy ever loved. Follow their affair in this fictional diary of the woman murdered for asking too many questions after the JFK assassination.

John F. Kennedy said he needed sex every three days or he got a headache. In the White House, he never had a headache. Kennedy met Mary Pinchot in 1935, when he was eighteen and she was sixteen. Twenty years later, when she was living in Virginia and married to Cord Meyer, a high-ranking CIA official, she was Jack and Jackie Kennedy’s next-door neighbor. In 1962, she was an artist, divorced, living in Washington—and Kennedy’s first serious romance. Mary Pinchot Meyer was more than a bedmate. She was Kennedy’s beacon light: his sole female adviser, spending mornings in the Oval Office, and, at night, discussing issues. After the 1964 election, Kennedy said, he would divorce Jackie and marry her.
After the assassination, Mary didn’t believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and she shared that view, loudly and often, in Washington’s most elite circles. Her ex-husband urged her to be silent, but when the report of the Warren Commission was released, she was even more loudly critical.

On October 10, 1964, two days before her forty-forth birthday, as she walked in Georgetown, a man shot her in the head and the heart. That night, Mary's best friend called her sister. “Mary had a diary,” she said. “Get it.”
The diary was filled with sketches, notes for paintings—and ten pages about an affair with an unnamed lover. Her sister burned it. In JFK and Mary Meyer: A Love Story, Jesse Kornbluth recreates the diary Mary might have written. Working from a timeline of Kennedy’s presidency and every documented account of their public relationship, he has written a high-octane thriller that tracks this secret, doomed romance—and invites readers to solve Mary’s murder.

Show book

Young Aleister Crowley and the...

Lon Milo DuQuette, Jim Bratkowsky

Step into the occult underworld of Edwardian London with Aleister Crowley, a rebellious genius and aspiring magician, as he plunges into the secret society of the Golden Dawn.The year is 1900, and this isn't just a new club; it's a war zone. Crowley, a world-class mountaineer and acclaimed poet, unwittingly arrives amidst a power struggle as formidable magicians revolt against their leaders, MacGregor Mathers and his wife, Moina Mathers.Empowered by an ancient Arabic grimoire, the Mathers claimed contact with "Secret Masters," but now their influence is waning. As historical figures like William Butler Yeats and Bram Stoker populate the ranks, Crowley finds himself caught in a magical crossfire. His naive pursuit of enlightenment accidentally ignites an all-out wizard war with magical attacks recoiling upon his adversaries. Yet, aided by unseen forces, Crowley uncovers the interdimensional secrets of the ancient book, unleashing its power himself. This epic adventure culminates in a climactic magical showdown, where Crowley's self-realization becomes his ultimate weapon.Between the darkness and the light stands Aleister Crowley.

Show book

The Illusions - The most...

Liz Hyder

At a time of extraordinary change, two women must harness their talents to take control of their own destiny . . .Bristol, 1896. Used to scraping a living as the young assistant to an ageing con artist, Cecily Marsden's life is turned upside down when her master suddenly dies. Believing herself to blame, could young Cec somehow have powers she little understands?Meanwhile Eadie Carleton, a pioneering early film-maker, struggles for her talent to be taken seriously in a male-dominated world, and a brilliant young magician, George Perris, begins to see the potential in moving pictures. George believes that if he can harness this new technology, it will revolutionise the world of magic forever - but in order to achieve his dreams, he must first win over Miss Carleton . . .As a group of illusionists prepare for a grand spectacle - to mark both the retirement of legendary master The Professor and the announcement of his successor - Cec, Eadie and George's worlds collide. But Cec soon finds herself facing the fight of her life to save the performance from sabotage - and harness the element of real magic held deep within her . . .THE ILLUSIONS is the captivating new novel from the much-lauded author of THE GIFTS. Inspired by real-life illusionists and early film pioneers, this astonishing story of women and talent, magic and power, sweeps you into a world where anything is possible and nothing is quite as it seems . . .

Show book

Ordeal by Innocence

Agatha Christie

Considered by critics the one of the best of Agatha Christie’s later novels, and a personal favorite for Christie herself, Ordeal by Innocence is a psychological thriller involving crimes from both past and present. 
According to the courts, Jacko Argyle bludgeoned his mother to death with a poker. The sentence was life imprisonment. But when Dr. Arthur Calgary arrives with the proof that confirms Jacko’s innocence, it is too late—Jacko died behind bars following a bout of pneumonia. Worse still, the doctor’s revelations reopen old wounds in the family, increasing the likelihood that the real murderer will strike again.

Show book

Maybe Esther - A Family Story

Katja Petrowskaja

An inventive, unique, and extraordinarily moving literary debut that pieces together the fascinating story of one woman’s family across twentieth-century Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Germany. 
Katja Petrowskaja wanted to create a kind of family tree, charting relatives who had scattered across multiple countries and continents. Her idea blossomed into this striking and highly original work of narrative nonfiction, an account of her search for meaning within the stories of her ancestors. 
In a series of short meditations, Petrowskaja delves into family legends, introducing a remarkable cast of characters: Judas Stern, her great-uncle, who shot a German diplomatic attaché in 1932 and was sentenced to death; her grandfather Semyon, who went underground with a new name during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, forever splitting their branch of the family from the rest; her grandmother Rosa, who ran an orphanage in the Urals for deaf-mute Jewish children; her Ukrainian grandfather Vasily, who disappeared during World War II and reappeared without explanation forty-one years later—and settled back into the family as if he’d never been gone; and her great-grandmother, whose name may have been Esther, who alone remained in Kiev and was killed by the Nazis. 
How do you talk about what you can’t know, how do you bring the past to life? To answer this complex question, Petrowskaja visits the scenes of these events, reflecting on a fragmented and traumatized century and bringing to light family figures who threaten to drift into obscurity. A true search for the past reminiscent of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated, Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost, and Michael Chabon’s Moonglow, Maybe Esther is a poignant, haunting investigation of the effects of history on one family.

Show book

Duke of Luhst

Mariah Stone

Nothing could change him for the better. Save, perhaps, her.
Seductive as a deadly sin, Lucien Wrenn, the Duke of Luhst, can tempt any lady into his bed. But his best friend’s little sister—bluestocking scientist Lady Chasity Perrin—is forbidden fruit. And he’s spent a lifetime aching to take a bite.
Chastity has always loved Lucien but the thoughtful boy she cherished grew into a careless rogue. Content with her lot as a spinster, she fights to advance her medical research in a world that denies women's place in science.
They can never be together until they clash in a heated argument and make a scandalous wager… During a month-long house party, both must do the impossible: sinful Lucien must remain celibate and wallflower Chastity must secure a marriage proposal.
When every eligible bachelor begins to compete for made-over Chastity, Lucien burns to claim her as his own.
As summer storm traps them, no vow of friendship can hold him back from breaking every rule to possess her.
As they grow closer -- body and soul -- his touch unravels her and she begins to crave something very dangerous: him. For the first time, someone sees straight to his wounded soul, and makes him want to be worthy of the only woman he loved his whole life.
But when Chastity's older brother learns his sister has been compromised, all hell breaks loose.
Read by the award-winning narrator, Audie finalist, and Earphones for excellence in narration winner, Shane East, and Justine Eyre, a classically trained actor and narrator has been honored to receive a coveted Audie Award and multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards.
Other volumes of the 'Seven Dukes of Sin' series:
1 - Duke of Rath
2- Duke of Luhst
3 - Duke of Pryde
More books to follow.

Show book